Tag: Berlin

Good evening! Not sure what I’m here to post but I figured I shouldn’t let another evening go by without putting something in this space. Do I have anything to say? Not really. I can’t say that ever stopped me from speaking in the past. Why should it stop me now?

Let’s deal with the minutia of the day, shall we? First off, and apropos of nothing, I forgot my belt this morning. It used to be that wearing a belt was not a requirement in my daily dress. Now I find that I feel naked without it. I was self-conscious about my lack of accoutrement all day long. Kinda’ threw me off my game. Not quite as badly as wearing my underpants backwards all day but definitely in the same vein. Maybe I should start a checklist in the mornings to make sure I have everything I need and it’s all right-side forward before I leave the house every day. Probably not a bad idea.

Song of the morning was “Berlin” by Intercept. I’ve blogged the lyrics to this song once already but it hasn’t made the morning mind rotation until now. It was rapidly overwhelmed upon wakefulness by an old camp favorite, “Rejoice in the Lord Always”. That’s a happy tune for a morning. It didn’t help me remember my belt but it was cheerful.

Heading home to North Carolina this weekend and looking forward to that in the extreme. In case you’ve been living under a rock or outside the United States, UNC is in the Final Four this weekend. The last time they won the championship, big brother Bigwig, niece Toto and I were in the Dean Dome watching the game on the big screen.

Toto was about four at the time and, with two minutes remaining in the game, had had enough. She was whining and ready to go home. With one minute to go in the game, the partisan crowd started to awaken to the fact that we were going to win and began to vocalize the same. Toto woke up immediately and did her best sorority girl impersonation all the way to Franklin Street. It was good times. Hopefully we can repeat the experience for the benefit of her little brother.

There are also others to see whilst I’m in NC. I’m heading the beach for a few days with Tiger and Bee for our sorta’ annual outing. I couldn’t make last year but we spent a lot of quality time the year previous MySpacing at one another from across the room. I hope Bee has a laptop this time because I’m certain we’ll Facebook the hell out of beach other this time.

Besides Tiger and Bee, I’ve got to see if I can’t make time for a few other friends while I’m traveling. Pooh for one. Haven’t seen her in some years and it’ll be good to catch up.

Jeffrey for another. Haven’t seen him in even more years. I don’t think I’ve seen him since our graduation from high school, really. Jeffrey is one of my first, and oldest, friends. I’ve been chatting some with him on Facebook and it’s really taken me back. I’ve been trying to think of a time when Jeffrey wasn’t my friend and I don’t seem to be able to remember that far back. He just always seems to have been there. Since Kindgergarten at least. It seems like whatever I think about from my youth, Jeffrey was part of it. He was part of school, part of the swimming pool…just part of life.

And he always seems to have had a moustache, at least if my memory is correct. Jeffrey is one of those guys that, even when he’s clean shaven, you’d swear he had a moustache. It’ s like a moustache of the soul. It’s just part of who he is. I’m pretty sure it’s always been there, though not always visibly. Even when we were five. I’m pretty sure.

Anyway, Jeffrey was my first best friend. I remember this very clearly. David S., Steve Y., Jeffrey and I were…well, best friends, but once, when we were playing kickball, David turns to Steve and claimed him as his “best” friend. I remember feeling very territorial and, much as Britain and France raced one another to colonize the globe, I felt that I needed to call dibs on a best friend. I turned to Jeffrey and asked if he wanted to be best friends, he said yes and that was that. We were best friends.

All four of us. But in pairs.

For a while there, it seems like we did everything together. We hung out at the pool in the summers, playing “Black Magic” or ping pong or whatever. We’d have sleepovers at somebodies house, doing stupid things like eating chili and then taking a laxative, just for “shits and giggles”. That was at David’s. At Jeffrey’s…well. I remember breaking into his father’s liquor cabinet once. That might’ve been the same night we spent mooning cars on the highway.

I’m one-hundred percent certain that we spent a good hour mooning cars on the highway, however. That was good times.

Sorry, Ma.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to some time in NC. I miss my folks and I miss my friends and I have to say that, for the first time in my 38 years, I’m a little homesick. Maybe I’ve been spending too much time in the past lately, remembering way back when. Maybe I’m getting old. Maybe everybody else is getting old. Whatever it is, it’ll be good to go home again, if just for a while.

I think that’s it for me, folk. Bedtime beckons. Good night to all and, to those in NC, see you soon.

Another two-fer this morning as I awoke. The first song in my head isn’t a song in the traditional sense. It’s a theme. The theme from “The Venture Brother”, to be exact. This goes to show how utterly random is the song in my head as I haven’t watched that show in some weeks now. Once they put up new episodes over at adultswim.com, that will probably change.

The other song is a entitled “Home” by the band Intercept. Intercept has been one of my favorite Pandora finds and I have a whole channel dedicated to their music. There are four songs of theirs that I really enjoy and the one below is probably my second favorite. My favorite is the first song I ever heard from the band, a song called “Berlin”. It reminds me of a particular person in my life and how we met. Lyrics below and the song can be played on the band’s website. You’ll have to skip a few songs in the embedded player.

When I think of Berlin, I see her as a person,
Quite a pretty picture,
Quiet, tiny, perfect, you know —
Smiling like Candlelight.

If I was a lucky man I would have seen her coming,
Would have had a better job, would have worked up just a little style by now…
Made my body beautiful…

Berlin…

All my friends say “you’re crazy, Chris,
You shouldn’t move straight for her,
You’ve built up your castles, and she’s building up her castles, too…”
And I know that I shouldn’t but I will ’til I win!